Aihui Ancient City

Aihui Ancient City

Aihui Ancient City is a cultural tourism attraction and a patriotic education base.

　Aihui Ancient City (now Aihui Town) is located 30 kilometers southeast of Heihe and is an important Qing Dynasty cultural and historical tourism area in Heihe. According to the Annals of Aihui County, the name of Aihui City originates from the Aihui River near the old Aihui on the east bank of the river. The old Aihui was collectively known as Sahalian Ula Hoton, meaning the city on the Heilongjiang River.

As early as over three hundred years ago (in 1683), the Qing government built Aihui City near the Jingqili River on the east bank of the Heilongjiang River and established the Office of the General of Heilongjiang. In 1685, it was relocated to the new Aihui City on the right bank of the Heilongjiang River (present-day Aihui Town). At that time, Aihui City was the political, economic, cultural, and military center of the entire Heilongjiang River basin. As the largest town in the Heilongjiang basin, Aihui reached its peak before 1900, when it had “a population of 40,000 and 3,000 merchants.” Commercial shops within the city flourished, and temples of all kinds were bustling with incense offerings.

In 1858, taking advantage of the Qing government’s northern closure policy, Tsarist Russia, under the command of Governor-General Muravyov of Eastern Siberia, sent a large force of Cossack troops to invade the Heilongjiang basin once again. They illegally settled immigrants on the east bank of the river, forcibly established villages, and used military force to coerce the Qing government into signing the unequal Sino-Russian Treaty of Aihui in Aihui City, resulting in China’s loss of over 600,000 square kilometers of territory north of the Heilongjiang River.

In 1900, Tsarist Russia took advantage of the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion in China and the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance formed by imperialist powers to launch a war of aggression. Under the pretext of protecting the construction of the China Eastern Railway, they dispatched a large army to invade China's northeast. They first created the shocking “Blagoveshchensk Massacre” and the “Sixty-Four Villages East of the River Massacre” in Blagoveshchensk, a city across the river from Heihe, slaughtering a large number of Chinese residents and driving them into the Heilongjiang River where they drowned. They then occupied Heihe, advanced along the river to capture Aihui City, and burned it to ruins. Since 1900 was the Year of Gengzi, this catastrophe orchestrated by Tsarist Russia is historically referred to in China as the “Gengzi Russian Disaster.”

Today, Aihui, a historic and cultural city by the Heilongjiang River, stands as a witness to the crimes of Tsarist Russia's invasion of China in the 20th century and serves as an important site for studying and exploring the history and culture of the Heilongjiang River basin. Nowadays, the ancient city ruins, the site where the unequal Sino-Russian “Treaty of Aihui” was signed, the ruins of the Vice-Governor’s Office, and the burial grounds of Qing Dynasty generals have become important tourist attractions. A new exhibition hall of over 3,000 square meters is currently under construction inside the Aihui History Exhibition Hall, which will use modern methods to better serve visitors. The ancient city of Aihui will restore its original appearance, allowing people to appreciate the former glory of the ancient city and the original site where the Treaty of Aihui was signed, showcasing the true face of history to domestic and international tourists.